


Liminal Spaces

by ax100



Series: Liminal Spaces, and Other Peripheral Elements [1]
Category: 30歳まで童貞だと魔法使いになれるらしい | 30-sai Made Doutei da to Mahou Tsukai ni Nareru Rashii (TV), 30歳まで童貞だと魔法使いになれるらしい | Cherry Magic! Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard?! (Manga)
Genre: ??? - Freeform, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Cherry Magic episode 11 spoilers, M/M, Post-ep11 catharsis bc i needed it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:53:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28262694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ax100/pseuds/ax100
Summary: Immediate aftermath of episode 11.-----Liminal(adj.)1) relating to a transitional or initial stage of a process;2) occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or thresholdLiminal space(n.)"The word 'liminal' comes from the Latin root,limen, which means "threshold." The liminal space is the "crossing over space"--a space where you have left something behind, yet you are not fully in something else. It's a transition space."(Seale, 2016)-----In the space between a reality where he's with Kurosawa and a reality where he isn't, Adachi meets a stranger who affords him a moment of solace, and perhaps a moment of redemption as well.
Relationships: Adachi Kiyoshi/Kurosawa Yuichi
Series: Liminal Spaces, and Other Peripheral Elements [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2098086
Comments: 25
Kudos: 58





	Liminal Spaces

**Author's Note:**

> Hey hi hello, everyone! Ax here. I'm normally very chipper in my notes, but I am not even kidding when I say that ep 11 left me in shambles. It hit a place very close to home for me, and it hit me really hard. I usually rewatch episodes two or three times on the day they premiere, but I just could not for this one. And when I woke up the next day, I felt like my heart had been trampled upon.
> 
> I started writing this fic as catharsis. The pain of heartbreak is one of the worst a person can ever go through, and I really wanted to reach through the screen and just give Adachi a hug. No one deserves to go through this alone. This fic features an OC of mine who goes unnamed, but if you've read my other fics in the past, you'd probably recognize him immediately.
> 
> For maximum immersion, I am sharing with you the songs I listened to while writing this fic: [**Liminal Spaces playlist**](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvV_3YwoPSgUnG2UxSVPqL5C1XG6Cd6qa). All these songs are also available on Spotify, so feel free to compile them as a playlist!
> 
> As a note, one of the songs, "Pagtingin" by Ben&Ben, is in Filipino. You may find an English translation of the lyrics [here](https://lyricstranslate.com/en/pagtingin-how-you-look-me.html). I have personally translated as well a portion of it that I felt was most relevant to the story over on twitter (link in End Notes, together with a fic graphic I created for this story, and graphics highlighting the most relevant lines of each song in the playlist).
> 
> The quote I cited on liminal spaces in the summary is from this article: ["The Liminal Space – Embracing the Mystery and Power of Transition from What Has Been to What Will Be" by Alan Seale (2016)](https://transformationalpresence.org/alan-seale-blog/liminal-space-embracing-mystery-power-transition-will-2/)
> 
> With that, I hope you enjoy this fic! :)

_“I don’t think you’re lying.”_

_“You’re so serious about this, there’s no way you could be lying.”_

_“I want you to make a choice that is not painful for you.”_

_“I want you to be smiling.”_

Adachi hiccups on another shaking breath as the words replay in his head, over, and over, and over again, endlessly repeating.

Kurosawa’s trembling voice in his ears, echoing.

The phantom touch of a hand tightly holding onto his wrist, haunting.

_“Should we just end it here?”_

_Pain, despair, heartbreak—all shining in the depths of kind eyes, endlessly kind eyes. So clear and so palpable that he didn’t need his accursed ability to know it._

_“I understand.”_

_A smile like shattered glass, barely held together by cellophane tape, ready to crumble into brittle fragments at the slightest touch._

He did that. He’s the one who did that to Kurosawa.

With tears streaming hot down his clammy cheeks, he’s overcome. He wants to heave out the contents of his empty stomach.

 _I deserve this_ , he thinks, breath hitching as a sob threatens to break out from the bottom of his chest. _I deserve this,_ he feels, to the very depths of his being. He deserves this pain, if only a fraction of the hurt he had caused Kurosawa. Retribution and punishment for someone like him—awful and terrible, the kind of person who would hurt someone like Kurosawa in the first place.

 _I don’t deserve him._ It echoes to the farthest reaches of himself. _Someone like me doesn’t deserve someone as good as him._

* * *

It’s probably only been two hours or so since he’d left Kurosawa’s place, but already, it feels like a thousand lifetimes. His feet ache from wandering around aimlessly, no destination in mind except _away, away, away._ Their places weren’t exactly near each other, but if he ended up walking all the way home tonight, even that wouldn’t be enough of a penance for everything he’s done in just this day alone. Besides, the pain in his feet was nothing, nothing at all when compared to the pain he feels in his heart.

He’s somehow ended up in a park around the area of their office, near a fancy restaurant the bosses dragged him to occasionally when there were clients to entertain and not enough warm bodies at the table. It looks vaguely familiar for reasons other than mere proximity somehow, but right now, he can’t place it. He’s seated on a bench, one of many looking out to a small lake in the middle of the park. The way that the light off the street lamps surrounding it glitter across the water would probably be beautiful any other time, but right now, it does nothing to ease the sting in his puffy, tired eyes. Still, he can’t help but stare at the shimmering surface of the lake, and it draws him in, quieting the cacophonous thoughts into dull static.

He doesn’t know how long he sits there, just staring at the lights dancing before his eyes, when movement from the corner of his eye catches his attention. He glances sideways to see that someone has settled down on the other end of the bench. It’s strange, he thinks, for a person to pick this spot, when there were literally a dozen other empty benches surrounding them. But it doesn’t really matter; he should be heading home anyway.

_(Home, his house, and not Kurosawa’s place, which had crept its way closer to closer to being called ‘home’ in his mind with each passing visit.)_

_(The pain threatens to burst out of his chest all over again.)_

He puts his hands on his knees to push himself to stand up, when more movement catches the edge of his vision, more deliberate now.

He turns to look at the other person—a young man with short black hair, he discovers—and sees in his hand a bottle of tea, held out towards him.

“It’s warm,” the stranger says, prompting him to look up. “It’s a cold night. It might help.”

For a long moment, Adachi doesn’t move, confused more than anything else at what was happening. His eyes trail between the tea and the young man’s face—probably someone just a few years younger than him—before the stranger places the bottle on the space of the bench between them, and nudges it towards Adachi.

“If you prefer water or something else, just let me know,” the stranger says, then jerks a thumb over his shoulder, towards the vending machine just a few paces away behind him. “I got it from there, so you don’t have to worry. I’m not anyone suspicious.”

 _Said every suspicious person ever,_ he wants to shoot back. He really wasn’t in the mood to deal with shit like this right now.

“I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” he says instead, planting his hands on his knees again to stand up.

“You don’t look like you should be alone right now,” says the stranger, practically blurting it out, like he was desperate to get Adachi to stay. And when Adachi looks back at him, the lights of the street lamp nearest them is just enough to illuminate bright, concerned eyes and a boyish face pulled into a sympathetic expression, the brow slightly furrowed with worry.

“I apologize if it’s presumptuous of me,” the young man rushes to explain, “but…I jog this route every night—“ _(Adachi’s eyes quickly scan over the windbreaker, the leggings and running shorts the man is wearing, the thin sheen of sweat shining on his forehead)_ “—and I’d never seen you before, and you looked…troubled. Sad. Lonely, I guess,” he rambles, but holds Adachi’s gaze as he repeats his earlier sentiment: “But you don’t look like you should be alone right now.”

“What the hell does that even mean?” Adachi abruptly retorts, demanding and frustrated in a way that surprises even himself. Remembering himself, he tears his gaze away, casts it on the ground. “I apologize,” he says, voice strained and chest tight. Lashing out at strangers now, was he? As if he needed any more of his flaws to come to light on this very day.

There’s a moment of silence, before the stranger quietly says, “It’s alright.”

Adachi doesn’t answer.

Silence stretches between them again, occasionally accompanied by the distant sounds of cars driving down the roads somewhere beyond the trees, or the rustle of browned leaves skating across the ground beneath their feet. A quiet splash comes from the lake once or twice, probably a fish coming up for air. Adachi was starting to become more and more familiar with the feeling of being suffocated himself.

There’s movement again, and he turns to see that the young man, his eyes fixed on the lake, has pushed the bottle of tea closer to him again.

“You don’t have to,” he says, “But if you’d like, you can talk about what’s bothering you. I can listen.”

Adachi eyes him warily. “And what good would that do?”

The stranger shrugs. “Maybe something, maybe nothing.” Then, he fixes Adachi with an understanding look. “All I know is that people shouldn’t have to suffer alone.”

 _Maybe other people,_ his mind supplies, looking away. _Maybe not people like me._

At the lack of a response, the young man looks back at the lake, planting his hands a little behind himself on the bench, slouching with his legs stretched out in front of him. The light of the street lamp catches a little on the reflectorized strips running down the length of his leggings. “If anything,” he continues in a casual tone now, “I’m a stranger, and we’ll probably never meet again. Whatever you tell me can just stay well between us, this bench, and the night sky. You can forget about me in the morning, if you want, and I can do the same.”

Adachi stares at him for a long time. It’s an offer— _tell me your story,_ essentially. From a complete stranger in the middle of the night, no less. He doesn’t know what to do with it; he’s never been in a situation like this, nor had he ever thought that he would ever end up in situation like this. It’s bizarre, is what it is. He should just thank the strange man for his time and unsolicited kindness, leave the tea, and go home. _(Home.)_ To an empty house, to a dark room, to a cold bed, to what will surely be a fitful sleep, to a morning that will come far too soon, to the aftermath of the entire sordid mess brought about by all the mistakes he’s ever made up until today.

_(Kurosawa wasn’t a mistake,_ his heart wars with him. _Kurosawa could never be a mistake.)_

He should go home.

And yet…somehow…

He slowly reaches his hand out and takes the tea. The young man glances at him as he cracks open the sealed cap and puts it to his lips. The tea is lukewarm as it passes into his mouth. He swallows down a grateful mouthful—he hadn’t even realized he’d been parched.

He brings the bottle down to rest between his knees and screws the cap back on. The stranger pretends not to, but Adachi knows that he’s being watched.

“Have you…” he starts, hesitating for a moment as a wave of doubt crests over him. But he’s tired. He’s so tired, he doesn’t even care anymore. It crashes over him like a wave on the breakwater, only to trickle off into vestiges of the fear of judgement he would ordinarily have in the daytime. He doesn’t know if it’s courage, per se, or just pure recklessness that pushes the words out of his mouth:

“Have you heard about that urban legend, that if you’re still a virgin by the time you reach thirty, you can become a magic-user?”

It’s clearly not the first thing the young man thought would come out of Adachi’s mouth, if the way he turns to fully look at him is any indication. Adachi doesn’t pay him any mind as he thoughtlessly carries on.

“It sounds stupid, right? Just a dumb urban legend being shared on the internet. I used to think so, too. But it’s true.” He turns to look at the young man, meeting his eyes. To hell with the secrets; none of it mattered anymore anyway. “I know it’s true because I’m one of them. I’m a magic-user.”

He expects the young man to react wildly to the admission, maybe get up, politely excuse himself, and jog away at the realization that this random guy he’d found on a park bench along his nightly jogging route was fucking crazy. But to Adachi’s great surprise, he doesn’t do that. He remains seated where he is, meeting Adachi’s gaze head-on, not even a waver at the revelation that anyone could have easily dismissed as the asinine ramblings of a man with a few screws loose in the head.

“I know it sounds crazy,” Adachi says, already feeling himself slipping back into the reflexive defensiveness.

“It doesn’t,” the stranger interrupts him, looking at him completely seriously. “I mean, I guess it kind of does,” he backtracks a bit, swaying his head a bit from side to side, seemingly turning the thought over in his mind. “But I don’t doubt that what you’re saying is true.”

It’s Adachi’s turn to be surprised. “Really?” he asks, disbelieving.

The stranger shoots him another sympathetic look. “Your story ends with you sitting in a stupor on a park bench at eleven on a weekday night,” he says gently. “I don’t think you would be lying about the things that led up to that.”

_“I don’t think you’re lying.”_

_“You’re so serious about this, there’s no way you could be lying.”_

_Kind eyes, endlessly kind._

Adachi tears his gaze away as he blinks back the tears that have started to gather in his eyes. He looks down at his hands, where the image of the bottle of tea now swims in his vision, murky and indistinct.

There’s some rustling and movement to his side, before a pack of tissues presents itself at the edge of his vision. He glances at the stranger, who gives him a look that urges him to take it. He’s afraid to do so, seeing how much surface area is occupied by the man’s hand.

“Just…Just put it on the bench,” he requests weakly. The stranger gives him a questioning look but does as he’s told, placing it down on the bench and sliding it closer to Adachi. He doesn’t ask, but Adachi gives him the answer anyway, after he’s regrouped just enough to not start crying the moment he starts talking.

“I can read people’s minds when I touch them,” he explains. Short and simple, yet endlessly complex in the web of lies he’s woven himself into.

“Ah,” the stranger makes a sound of understanding, like that actually explains anything. Maybe it does, in a way. Adachi’s not really sure anymore. “Is…” he starts, tentatively, “Is that where it all starts?”

Adachi nods. “When I turned thirty just three months ago, I developed the ability to read people’s minds,” he says. “It…It was scary, especially at the start. I was afraid of it. You don’t really realize how much you come into contact with other people, until you can hear everything they’re thinking.”

“Sounds stressful.”

“It was. Is.” Is. “And that’s when…” he hesitates before continuing, “that’s when I found out that someone at work likes me,” he says. _Loves me,_ he knows, intimately. “A guy from the same department as me. We’re the same age, came into the company at around the same time, so we’re colleagues. But he’s…” _–beautiful, caring, amazing, selfless, perfect—_ “…nothing like me.”

There’s a beat before the stranger pipes up with, “I’m not sure what that means.”

Adachi glances at him and sees that he’s being given a blank look; no judgement, just patience.

“Well, it must be obvious, right?” Adachi makes a wide, sweeping gesture towards himself. “I’m nothing special. I don’t really have any talents or aspirations or anything like that. I’m kind of just…going along with everything, I guess. Just doing what needs to be done. Nothing like Kurosawa—he’s good at his job, he works really hard, he’s passionate about what he does, and everyone loves him.” He looks down at his hands, sees how they grip the bottle between them tightly. “There’s no reason why he should like someone like me,” he concludes quietly.

There’s a lull again, in which Adachi thinks that maybe he had said too much—just what the heck was he unloading to a stranger anyway? This was just about the magic, wasn’t it?

“So,” the stranger says, before he can think any more along those lines. “What did you do, once you found out that Kurosawa-san liked you?”

Adachi almost reels back at the mention of Kurosawa’s name, before he realizes that, indeed, he had blurted it out earlier like an idiot, hadn’t he? Loose lips sink ships and all that. Just how much was he going to bare tonight?

Though…hadn’t that ship already sunk, anyway?

He rolls the bottle between his hands as he thinks of how to answer the question.

If he starts on this tangent, there’s no way he’s going to be able to stop. And that meant saying everything he had never been able to say, not even to Tsuge, sometimes not even to himself. It meant facing every single moment that had led to where he is now—all the happiness, all the love, all the shame, and all the guilt that had built up to this very instance.

The tea sloshes from side to side inside the bottle, the movement hypnotic.

 _Honesty,_ floats the word from somewhere in the back of his mind, like a bell in a storm.

He had gotten into this whole mess all because he just couldn’t be honest.

And maybe it was already too late to start, but maybe he was also tired of making the same damn mistakes over and over again.

He stops the movement of his hands and turns towards the stranger. He looks back expectantly, no doubt noticing the way Adachi has seemed to settle.

“I’ll tell you everything,” he decides.

So, he does. He tells him everything, from the way he had first found out about Kurosawa’s feelings by accident, to the way he couldn’t seem to stop noticing Kurosawa since then. He tells him about the way Kurosawa had gone out of his way to help him in his work multiple times, and had he only started then, or had Adachi only started paying attention now? (Probably the latter.) He tells him about the how the futon Kurosawa had lent him at his place was five times softer than his own bed, and that he cooked tamagoyaki just like they did at the ryokans. He tells him about how he’s tried to help Kurosawa in his own little ways, too _(“All that fuss for a mont blanc, really?” the stranger laughs)_ , though with not nearly as much elegance as Kurosawa would have had _._ He tells him about how embarrassed he feels now, knowing that he had literally worried himself sick over Kurosawa’s ‘ex-girlfriend’ who turned out to be his sister, and how Kurosawa manifests jealousy by getting competitive with his cooking.

He tells him about how warm Kurosawa’s scarf had been on that cold night three months ago, about how that warmth had emanated from within, flowing into him on the backs of kind words from a person who saw him for more than he himself felt like most days.

He tells him about papers spilled across the office floor because of his own clumsiness, and how _‘colleague’_ could be such a lonely word.

He tells him about the unlikely intersection between the smell of tobacco, the sound of jeering, and the sweeping of gentle lips across his forehead. He tells him about quiet apologies whispered where no ears could reach. He tells him about how loud the sound of a water bottle hitting the ground can be, as the night lights twinkle in the distance, and a strong arm circles around your shoulders and pulls you close.

He tells him about the sting of antiseptic and scratchy gauze as he listened to a perfect man berate himself and forgive himself in the same sentence, ironically helpless in his desire to be there for the person he loved in any way he could.

He tells him about how bone-deep the cold is in the mornings approaching winter, when you’ve passed out the night before in a suit soaked from the rain after feeling your heart shatter for reasons you can’t quite explain.

He tells him about hazy memories of careful hands tending to him in the intervals between a dreamless sleep wrought by fever, about hot porridge scalding his tongue as his heart fluttered with nervousness and a trace of a feeling he hadn’t been quite ready to unpack just yet.

He tells him about a moment he hadn’t been prepared for, in any capacity of the word, recalling each detail of the night Kurosawa had stood in front of him under a covered walkway and admitted to him what he’d already known. To hear it be spoken out loud was a whole different matter entirely, and Adachi hadn’t been expecting it, nor had he been prepared to give a response. He tells the stranger about how he had stood rooted to the spot, not knowing what to do or say, as he watched Kurosawa’s form grow smaller and smaller as it disappeared into the night. He hadn’t known that it would be so paralyzing.

_(“Maybe if it had been anyone else, they would have had an answer for him right away. He had a business trip the next day, you know? I can’t even imagine how hard it must have been for him to work that day.”_

_“But wasn’t it hard for you as well?”)_

He tells him about dawning realizations made on the workroom floor, recalling all of the little things he had taken for granted and realizing that _no, he didn’t want things to go back to the way they were._ He tells him about burning lungs and racing thoughts, as his mouth struggled to form the words that were so, so important to say. _(“Putting all those reasons aside, I like you, Kurosawa.”_ _Plain and simple and true—just like Adachi himself, perhaps.)_ He tells him about how nice it feels to be embraced so tightly, and to cling just as earnestly in return, thinking that maybe there was something like destiny in this world after all.

He tells him about the warmth of love, all-encompassing and uncontainable in any language known to man.

He tells him about how love transforms, about how people can still be hard to understand, even with the mind-reading. But maybe, just maybe, he’s getting better at it somehow, some way. He tells him about the way that outward appearances don’t always speak of what is happening inside, like when a boisterous kouhai hides from the drinking party arranged especially for him, or when a mother may not understand that her daughter has no interest in marriage or relationships as a whole, or when you touch your friend’s shoulder to let him know that failure is not the end, or when you’re being urged to go home and prepare for a competition by the senpai who always foists extra work onto you.

He tells him about how it’s all thanks to Kurosawa. He tells him about how it’s all thanks to a cold night and a warm scarf three months ago, when he felt like he had been seen for the first time in his life, and how all the little moments had piled up after that like snowflakes, one after the other. That by the time he had noticed the metaphorical snowbank upon his doorstep, his eyes were always seeking him out, and his head was full of thoughts of the man—that by the time he had noticed, he had already fallen in love with _(beautiful, caring, amazing, selfless, not perfect but **good** ) _Kurosawa Yuuichi.

_(The stranger slides the tissues closer to Adachi. He takes them.)_

He tells him about failure, too. He tells him about how being with Kurosawa had made him feel invincible, like he could do amazing things too, only to find out that in the end, he didn’t even have the strength to hold up a dream for the both of them.

_(“If you participate, I’ll be rooting for you all the way!”_

_‘What am I supposed to do, when you’re making me like you even more than this?’_

_‘Ah, I might really like him a lot…’)_

_(“That’s amazing, Adachi! Terashima-buchou rarely praises anyone.”_

_‘It’s the magic that’s amazing…’)_

He tells him about secrets. He tells him about how lying by omission is still lying all the same. He tells him about fear, and how paralyzing and suffocating it can be, when you’re facing it alone. He tells him about dependence on a substance that isn’t even tangible, let alone illegal, but should be forbidden all the same.

He tells him about sheer, single-sighted desperation, and a solicitation made. He tells him about the disgust that crawled upon his skin once he realized that, if he went through with this, he would well and truly be using Kurosawa for his own selfish gain, and how that thought had lanced through him like a lightning strike after hearing delicate words of love and admiration he was never meant to be privy to.

He tells him about ruined surprises. He tells him about broken trust.

He tells him about heartbreak, and how it looks reflected in kind eyes. Endlessly kind.

_(“I want you to make a choice that is not painful for you.”)_

_(“I want you to be smiling.”)_

_(The tight grip of a hand that never wanted to let go.)_

_(Someone like me.)_

_(Someone like me.)_

_(Someone like me.)_

_(“Isn’t it strange? I don’t deserve to be with you.”)_

_(“Should we end it here then?”)_

He tells him everything, everything he has to say, everything he has to give, everything he has lost on this very night. He lays it all down for the stranger to see, to know, to hand judgment down to. He bares himself in a way he never expected he’d be able to do, not by himself, not with Tsuge, not with Kurosawa. And at the end of it all, he’s nothing but a man sitting on a park bench in the dead of night, confessing his sins to a person he doesn’t even know, sobbing and broken and in so, so much pain that he doesn’t know what to do. He’d never expected heartbreak to feel like this, rending him from the inside out, tearing him apart until he was sure there would be nothing of him left. _He_ did that to Kurosawa. _He_ was the one who did that to Kurosawa, and someone like him, _someone like him_ —

“Hey, breathe, breathe,” comes a distant voice from beside him, but he can barely hear it. Then, a touch on his shoulder.

 _Seriously, breathe,_ comes a voice, clear as day, in his mind.

He gasps and jerks back, but the stranger grasps his shoulder firmly to stop him from escaping. He locks eyes with him. They’re dark and brown and resolute.

 _Guess you can hear this then, huh?_ comes the voice again, cutting through the endless chaos in his head. _Okay, just stay with me, alright? Try to match my breathing._

Breathing— _what?_

_Just breathe with me, okay?_

_Inhale…_

_Exhale…_

_Inhale…_

_Exhale…_

_Inhale…_

_Exhale…_

_Inhale…_

_Exhale…_

_Inhale…_

_Exhale…_

_Better?_

Adachi slowly blinks, his eyes still locked with the stranger’s. The man hadn’t let him look away for even a second. His gaze now is softer as he asks the question. Adachi takes a few more breaths through his slightly open mouth—slow and steady now, nothing like they had been earlier. His heart is beating more easily now, unrestricted. He nods.

The stranger gives him a small smile, then removes his hand from his shoulder, setting it back down on his own lap. “Glad to hear it,” he says. Then, he nods at the bottle sitting next to Adachi on the bench. “You should drink that.”

Right, the tea. There was still a third of it left. He’d been taking sips all throughout earlier. But—

“Ah, give it here, I’ll throw out the trash,” the stranger says, holding his hands out. On Adachi’s lap was a mess of used tissues and an empty plastic packet.

“Ah, no, I can—“

“No, you drink your tea. It’s alright, let me help you.”

Adachi blinks up at him, and he _feels_ just how puffy and raw his eyes are. He realizes this man has just watched him break down into tears and bawl his eyes out. Feeling a bit embarrassed, but too tired to do anything about it, he piles the tissues into the stranger’s cupped hands, together with the empty packet. He watches as the stranger gets up and seeks the nearest trashcan, a couple of streetlamps away, and he does as he’s told and drinks the rest of his tea. It’s way past cold now.

_Let me help you._

Why were those words so hard to accept? Whether it be from a stranger, from an old friend, or from Kurosawa, why did he have such a hard time accepting them? Could things have turned out differently, had he just been a little more open to the possibility?

He sees the stranger walking back, fishing a small spray bottle out of the pocket of his windbreaker and spritzing his hands with it—sanitizer, it looked like.

“You sure come prepared for your runs,” Adachi comments as the stranger settles back down on the other end of the bench. That quirks a slight smile out of the other man as he tucks the stray bottle back into his pocket.

“Ever take a whizz, just to realize there’s no water in the sink to wash your hands with after? Awful stuff. It pays to come prepared.”

It’s such a random, somewhat inappropriate sentiment to be sharing with a person you’ve never met in your life, but it’s been a wild night of oversharing anyway, and the absurdity of the whole situation is getting apparent enough that Adachi can crack a little shadow of a smile at it.

A few minutes pass between the two of them in silence. Adachi’s not entirely sure what time it is anymore; he feels like he’d been talking for eternity. But this companionable silence is nice. He, at least, doesn’t feel like the world is crumbling beneath his feet anymore. Whether that would stay true until tomorrow, he couldn’t really be certain, but at this point in time, he couldn’t care less. Tomorrow’s problems were tomorrow’s problems. Today’s problems were today’s.

“Kurosawa-san really loves you, huh.”

Adachi looks at the young man, whose gaze is fixed on the lake in front of them.

“To give you up like that…” The stranger turns to him, and to Adachi’s surprise, his eyes are glassy with unshed tears. “…he must really love you, mustn’t he?”

Adachi stares back for a few moments, during which a feeling starts stirring in his chest again, accompanied by the memory of a touch upon his wrist and a broken smile given to him like a farewell gift. He tamps the feeling down, knowing that he lets it get any bigger, he’ll end up crying all over again. Instead, he swallows.

“Yes,” he says, so, so quietly, voice quivering. “He loves me.”

Then, the stranger straightens up and turns fully towards him. “And,” he says, “do you love him?”

Adachi stares. He stares and he stares and he stares, the question turning over and over in his head. The stranger doesn’t prompt him any more beyond that, just watching him and waiting for an answer.

Adachi knows his answer. He knows it so, so well.

“Yes,” his voice cracks on the word as tears well up and spill down his cheeks again. “Yes, yes, yes,” he says again and again, his strangled voice rising with each word. “I love him.”

And now that he says it, it’s like he can’t stop saying it—all the words he had shared earlier, entire tomes worth of them, pale into comparison to this. Distilled into one statement, the words continue to tumble out of his mouth, desperate to be heard, to be manifested into reality, his voice hitching on a sob in the rush to make it all real. “I love him. I love him so much, I don’t know what to do. I love him. I love him.” And it hurts, because the first person who should have heard these words was Kurosawa, but it was too late now. He’d never be able to tell him. They were over. They were through.

He hiccups, and the stranger catches his eye with a look he can’t turn away from, his eyes glistening with still-unshed tears as they bore into Adachi’s own. “Then why are you not together?” he asks softly, just barely above a whisper.

Adachi inhales a sob at that. “I don’t know,” he confesses. Suddenly, all the seemingly logical thoughts and decisions that have led up to this moment don’t make sense anymore. Kurosawa loved him, and Adachi loved him in return. So why weren’t they together? The set of conditions and the outcome did not make sense, even with the most basic rules of logic. If they loved each other, why weren’t they together?

_“Should we just end it here?”_

It had felt right to say yes at the time, but by no means because he had wanted things to end. _He deserves more,_ he’d kept thinking, _he deserves better. He doesn’t deserve someone like me—_

“You really need to stop saying that,” the stranger’s voice cuts through the thoughts, and when Adachi meets his eyes, he realizes he had unwittingly spoken the words aloud. The stranger looks back at him with a jaw clenched tight and a deep furrow of concern on his brow. “I think I’m starting to understand where the problem is coming from, now,” he says quietly.

At least someone was. It was way more than could be said for Adachi. He sniffles, bringing the ball of his hand to wipe some of the tears away; the tissues were long gone now. “W-what do you mean?” he asks.

“You keep saying, ‘someone like me, someone like me,’” the stranger explains, then lets out an empty, humorless laugh. “What the hell are you even talking about?”

“I told you already!” Adachi cries out, despairing and desperate to be understood. “I’m _nobody!_ Didn’t everything I just say make it clear? I’m just _me,_ plain and boring, good-for-nothing _me._ The kind of person who would take advantage of someone’s feelings, the kind of person who just keeps hurting Kurosawa over and over again! If we stay together any longer than this, I’ll just end up disappointing him!” He breathes hard, his hands clenched into fists on top of his knees.

The stranger looks back at him wordlessly. Something akin to anger flares up within him. Wasn’t it so clear? Wasn’t it all so obvious?

“I’ve only gotten this far,” Adachi says steadily between heaving breaths, “because of the magic. If I go any further with Kurosawa—if I lose this magic—what will happen to us then?” He feels the way his nails dig painfully into the palms of his hands. “I’d rather end it here than find out. He’s better off without me anyway. He deserves someone who can make him happy without needing _mind-reading_ to do it.”

The stranger studies Adachi after he says this, pursing his lips and taking a deep breath. Then, he threads his fingers together and places his hands on his lap. “I don’t know you,” he starts—a fact, and a strange one to announce at this point in time. “I don’t know you, but…I can tell you about the kind of person I heard about in your stories just now.”

“What?”

The question goes ignored. “’Someone like me,’ you keep saying,” he says now, turning to look back at the lake, almost as if letting the thoughts run unfiltered now. “Well, the ‘someone like you’ I kept hearing about looks to be observant…kind…generous…considerate…maybe too considerate, in fact. Always thinking about others, about how they’ll react, about how to make things easier on them, about how he can help. About how he can not get in the way, if need be.” He sighs, then looks back at Adachi. “I don’t know what happened in your past. I have absolutely no idea of your circumstances. But why is it that you place such little importance on yourself?”

Adachi stares back, unblinking.

“Haven’t you noticed?” he asks. “Everything you’ve told me has been in relation to other people. Your relationship to Kurosawa-san, your interactions with your colleagues, your friend. There were only two anecdotes in that whole thing where you truly did something for yourself—“

“Both instances today—“ he tries to supply.

“You cheated on the competition because you didn’t want all of Kurosawa-san’s help to go to waste, right?”

His stomach churns. “Then, the offer—“

“Was because you were just that desperate to get rid of the magic so it could finally stop interfering with your relationship with Kurosawa-san, wasn’t it?” There’s an expectant look in the stranger’s eye. He’s not wrong.

He straightens up. “No. The first one I’m referring to was that day you confessed.”

“Huh?” Adachi blinks.

“Among all the stories you’ve told me, that was one of the only two where you actually sat down and thought about what _you_ wanted. Not what Kurosawa-san wanted, or what would be best for the other people involved.”

_‘I can’t forget about it, all of it, all of it, all of it, all of it!’_

“If you’re talking about being selfish, _that_ was one of the two times you truly were, I believe,” the stranger tells him. “And it took courage, didn’t it?”

A beat passes before Adachi nods. It had. It had taken so much courage, not knowing how things would turn out. All he knew at the time was that he had words, he had feelings, and he had feet hitting the pavement and sweat running down his forehead, all to the beat of his heart telling him, _no, I don’t want to go back to the way we used to be._

If he hadn’t taken that chance that night, then he wouldn’t have known how happy he could be in Kurosawa’s arms, or how playful Kurosawa really was under his polished exterior, or how Kurosawa composed mushy poems in his head while seated next to the person he loved. He wouldn’t have known the sheer audacity of hugging someone so blatantly in public and not giving a care about it. He wouldn’t have known the feeling of having someone in his corner to support him in whatever he did, and how powerful he could feel because of it.

He wouldn’t have known what it would be like to be loved by Kurosawa Yuuichi, nor would he have known what it would be like to love him in return, had Adachi not been brave enough for just ten seconds to recognize the feelings that had grown within him and decide what he wanted to do about them.

“What’s the other one, then?” Adachi asks. “The other time I was being selfish.”

The stranger gives him a considering look. “That would be today, when you agreed to end things with him.”

Adachi looks back at him wordlessly.

“Did you really want to break up?”

“Yes,” Adachi says, immediately. “It’s for the best—“

“That’s not the question.”

It’s enough to get Adachi to slam his jaw shut.

“I’m asking,” he says, looking Adachi straight in the eye, “did _you_ really want to break up? All things being equal, if there was nothing else to complicate matters, would you have broken up with Kurosawa-san?”

Adachi stares back for a moment, taken aback. _All things being equal? Nothing else to complicate matters?_ As if such a situation could ever be engineered.

But…

If he was asking, plain and simple…if Adachi could have his way…

If he could be _selfish_ for just a moment…

“No, of course not,” Adachi whispers into the night air, almost affronted that this was a question at all. If he had really wanted to, he wouldn’t be here, would he? He wouldn’t have been crying his heart out and spilling all his secrets to a stranger, would he? "Of course not, he’s…he’s…” _Everything._

The stranger doesn’t wait for him to find the words. “And does Kurosawa-san know that?” he asks him pointedly.

Adachi freezes.

The stranger leans back a little, correctly taking the reaction as a confirmation of his suspicions. “I’m not saying you made the wrong decision. But, I do think both of you were being selfish in your own ways. Did you two even talk about what both of you wanted? Or did you two make those decisions on your own?”

Adachi swallows and looks down at his hands, his thoughts now running a mile, a minute. It’s true. He has no idea what Kurosawa had been thinking at the time; he’d pushed him away before they could even get there _(the phantom touch of the hand on his wrist lingers)._ And Adachi, on his part, hadn’t been completely honest about what he had been feeling either. The secret of the magic may have been out, his fears about their relationship may have been revealed, but did Kurosawa know the most important part—that, all things being equal and with nothing else to complicate matters, Adachi, selfishly, would have never wanted to let him go?

Kurosawa had made the offer, but Adachi was the one who took it, thinking that that was what would be best for the both of them in the end.

But had he even considered what Kurosawa wanted in all this?

“I’ll ask you again,” the stranger says gently, and when Adachi looks back up at him, his eyes are the same. “If Kurosawa-san loves you, and you love him back, then why are you not together?”

“I don’t know,” Adachi repeats his answer from earlier, but somehow completely different this time, with new understanding. He doesn’t know, because he hadn’t asked.

The answer, with its underpinning tone of understanding, makes the stranger nod. “And that’s the problem, isn’t it?”

“I should have talked to him about it,” Adachi realizes aloud, his heart beating in his ears. “I should have asked him what he wanted.”

“It’s not too late.”

Wasn’t it? “I don’t know if I’m brave enough to do that,” he admits, not without shame.

The stranger hums. “You were brave once,” he reminds him _(—burning lungs and racing thoughts—),_ “I don’t think it’s impossible for you to be brave again.”

It’s not, he has to admit. Just highly unlikely. And so, very difficult.

But because it was Kurosawa, maybe…maybe he could convince himself to be.

Because among other things _(so many other things),_ Kurosawa made him feel invincible, like maybe he could do amazing things too.

_‘Maybe I became a magic-user to touch this person’s heart.’_

_“It’s probably…no, it’s definitely thanks to you. So now, I feel like I can do my best.”_

_‘Without reading anyone’s mind, I’ll do it with my own strength!’_

Adachi nods.

Maybe. Just maybe, he could be brave, for Kurosawa, who had given him so much.

_A cold night and a warm scarf three months ago, and all the small things that had piled up since then, like little snowflakes._

The stranger smiles at him, wider now. “Feeling better?” he asks, out loud this time.

Adachi nods again. Somehow, some way, yes, he was feeling better. The situation hadn’t changed; it was just as difficult as it had been at the start. Everything still hurts, but somehow, he’s starting to think that that would just be the norm in any sort of reality where he didn’t have Kurosawa with him. What he plans to do with the realizations made tonight, he’s not entirely sure yet. But in any case, there’s a distant feeling of lightness introducing itself somewhere at the edge of his consciousness.

Would it really be so bad to hope?

“Thank you,” he tells the stranger, with all the sincerity he can muster. He hopes he is able to convey the gratitude he feels. “Really, I don’t…You were right. It wouldn’t have been a good idea for me to be alone tonight.” A pang goes through his heart as he wonders if Kurosawa had anyone to talk to about this, or if he was suffering alone because of Adachi, as usual.

Adachi had to make things right. Somehow, no matter what that meant.

But tonight, he was just tired. Tonight, he couldn’t fix it. And maybe that was okay. Tomorrow’s problems were tomorrow’s problems; today’s problems were today’s.

“You’re welcome,” the stranger answers. “I’m just glad to have been able to help.” Then, without preamble, he plants his hands on his knees and stands up. “Well then, I’m off.”

“Eh?” Adachi watches as he stretches his arms high above his head, rising a little on the balls of his feet. “You’re leaving?”

“Yup,” he answers easily, letting his arms fall back down to his sides before settling his hands on his hips and turning to Adachi. “You should probably get going as well. It’s almost 2AM, you know.”

“Eh?” Adachi jerks his head down to look at his watch—indeed, it was fast approaching 2AM. He hadn’t even realized they’d been talking for more than two hours. “Crap, it’s this late already…?” He’d definitely have to get a taxi at this rate.

“Good luck at work tomorrow,” the stranger says. And it could be a reference to how a salaryman like Adachi would have to come into work sleep-deprived the next day, but the way he says it communicates another layer of meaning. They both know that tomorrow means the office, and that tomorrow means Adachi and Kurosawa in the same vicinity with only a few pieces of furniture and a mountain of unspoken sentiments between them.

Adachi meets his eyes as the churning in his stomach begins anew, the time of the night forgotten. “I don’t know if I can go through with it,” he admits in a small voice, his last act of raw honesty for the evening. “I want to, but…”

The stranger fixes him with an unwavering look, but a sympathetic one all the same. “It’s up to you now, I’m afraid,” he says. “At the end of the day, whatever advice I’ve given you are just the thoughts of someone who doesn’t actually know you or your circumstances at all. I can say these things easily because I don’t know any of the other factors that may be affecting your situation. Consider our talk more of an exercise in thinking through another perspective. But what you actually do with that perspective is all you now. Whether you take it or leave it, do something with it or just ignore it, it’s all in your hands now.”

That was true, all of it was true. At the end of the day, it was still all Adachi, wasn’t it?

The thought is frightening, to say the least.

“But,” the stranger says, his voice now gentle. “I think you’ll know what the right thing to do is, once you’re actually in that situation. Have faith in that.”

A beat or two passes, while Adachi processes the words. Then, he gives a slow, silent nod.

With that, the stranger gives him one last smile, letting his hands fall to his sides. “Right,” he says, then and angles his body away, already taking on the posture for jogging. “It was nice to meet you then—“

“Wait!” Adachi cries out, his voice accidentally louder than intended, startling the man. “Sorry, just…what’s your name?” He wanted to at least know what to call the man who had helped him on one of the hardest nights of his life.

The stranger blinks and considers the question for a moment. Then, surprisingly enough, he snorts. “You can think of me as the cold night air for now,” he replies. “If we ever meet again, I’ll tell you my name then.” And before Adachi can stop him, he turns around and takes off running down the path.

Adachi watches him go with rapt eyes, and when the glint of reflectorized leggings have well and truly disappeared into the shadows, he looks down at his hands, where he’s clutching onto an empty bottle of what used to be tea. Like a specter in the night. How strange life could be.

He takes his backpack from where he’d put it down on the bench and hoists it up onto his shoulders, then makes his way to the rubbish bin to dispose of the bottle. When he looks up, he’s faced with the sight of the lake, somehow familiar in a way he still couldn’t quite place. There was something about this place that was significant beyond just the last three hours of his life, he was sure of it. Maybe he’d remember in the morning.

For now, he watches the lights off the streetlamps dance across the surface of the water, glittering like a thousand stars in the night sky.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this fic, and I hope you enjoyed. :) If this fic spoke to you in any way, please do let me know down in the comments below.
> 
> Please also do consider liking and retweeting my graphics for this fic here: [Liminal Spaces](https://twitter.com/ax100writes/status/1341753143755907075). 
> 
> I have also included in the thread the lines from each song that I wanted to highlight, as I felt they were most significant to this story as I was writing. I have also included my own translation of a portion of "Pagtingin" by Ben&Ben in said thread.
> 
> If you'd like to see more of my ep11 thoughts (of which I have many), you can check them out here: [Ax's Cherry Magic ep11 thoughts](https://twitter.com/ax100writes/status/1339765050605617152?s=20)
> 
> This may be my last post for the year, but we shall yet see. Happy holidays! I hope ep12 is kind to us!! a;sdlkfn
> 
> Thank you for reading!
> 
> P.S.: To some of my more frequent readers, did you figure out who the stranger was? Lol
> 
>  **Update!**  
>  Sequel coming soon, set after episode 12.


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